Tuesday, June 9, 2009

Your Emmy Award-Winning Bookstore

Terrific, astounding news: on Friday, June 6, Alex Germanotta's recent documentary on Chop Suey Books and the Books on Wheels program WON A FREAKING EMMY!!! The short film was originally produced for VCU-TV/HD and rebroadcast on Richmond PBS affiliate WCVW.

You can watch online in full at the VCU-TV site, or in three parts on YouTube. The VCU press release about the award, which was bestowed at a ceremony in Washington, DC, can be found here.

Our congratulations to Alex, his team, and everyone at VCU-TV/HD! We're just honored that they wanted to put a bunch of silly-looking book people like ourselves on video in the first place...

Hey, here's a side note: we learned about the award this morning when it was announced on WCVE, the NPR station related to WCVW. Together they're known as the "Community Idea Stations." And how'd they announce the bestowing of this honor upon a film about a community business? The award, they said, was won for a documentary "about a local cut-rate bookstore." A local cut-rate bookstore? Thanks, Wayne Farrar! Is it hard for WCVE to say the name of the store? Which is the title of the award-winning movie? They can't call us a used bookstore? Which is what we are? They've gotta use a demeaning term? Listen, we're just thrilled with our Community Idea Stations, whose staff we've never seen in this community bookstore.

For our money, the real community broadcasters in Richmond are the good folks at WRIR. Maybe that's because when we go to events with Chop Suey or do community outreach with Books on Wheels, we actually see WRIR, you know, interacting with the community.